Help! 2018 Outlander PHEV nits and bugs...

DarrenHD · Nov 24, 2019

promobob1965 said:
Howdy everyone!

BUG: Sometimes the car goes into hybrid mode, and will ***NOT*** go into EV mode, even with a near full charge in the traction battery, and all climate controls turned off. The driver gauge display says its in EV mode, but you can hear the engine (and see it on the vehicle info display). When the car comes to a standstill the engine stops, so it's not like it is following some minimum engine runtime timer. In ECON mode and gingerly hitting the accelerator the engine roars back to life. The only way to get it to go into EV mode is to shut off the car and reinitialize the system. This has happened more than once.

Bob

Agree with everything you said, it's a quirky vehicle...a tip: To prevent the engine from coming on (especially in colder weather) press the EV Priority button at the same time as you turn on the car. That is: Hold down the EV Button, put your foot on the brake pedal, then turn on the car. That will prevent the engine from immediately starting. Also always drive in EV+ECO mode (Press the ECO button after pressing EV), the engine will almost never come on if you have a battery charge >30%. At least this has been the case with my 2018 Canadian vehicle. We are just starting winter so this has worked so far in temps down to -5C. We will see how well it does when it gets to -20C in January/February. Also get a VGate OBD reader and the PHEVWatchDog app - it will give you lots of technical info about your vehicle, state of charge, and if you register the software, it can record/save all your trip data and battery SOH data which can be interesting.

I also came from a Volt, and having to reset the "Trip A" in the Outlander every day is a pain in the ***...my Volt did it automatically...sigh. It is what it is.....the only affordable AWD SUV PHEV, but that is changing.

BIKERMGA · Dec 27, 2019

Surprised no one has mentioned the location of the seat heater buttons. You cannot see them from either front seat, and to adjust from full heat to half heat or to switch off, the driver has to take their eyes off the road.

The multi selection display button cannot be seen by the driver because the steering wheel blocks the view. The tail gate door button is also difficult to see, and is not lit when the car is off, so makes it difficult to operate when you have parked and switched off. The door lock/unlock button in the driver's arm rest is also not lit at night.

Mitsubishi - please offer a driver's seat memory button as a retrofit asap.

greendwarf · Dec 28, 2019

Also heater etc. controls are "eyes off the road" as well! :?

jaapv · Dec 28, 2019

BIKERMGA said:
Surprised no one has mentioned the location of the seat heater buttons. You cannot see them from either front seat, and to adjust from full heat to half heat or to switch off, the driver has to take their eyes off the road.

The multi selection display button cannot be seen by the driver because the steering wheel blocks the view. The tail gate door button is also difficult to see, and is not lit when the car is off, so makes it difficult to operate when you have parked and switched off. The door lock/unlock button in the driver's arm rest is also not lit at night.

Mitsubishi - please offer a driver's seat memory button as a retrofit asap.

My solution is muscle memory. Did you ever see a piano player visually checking the position of the keys visually?